Stan Collender writes a rousing defense of the Washington Post plan—since abandoned in the face of criticism/controversy—to charge for access to “intimate dinners” at publisher Katharine Weymouth’s house:
The only thing the Washington Post really did that was wrong is that it apologized.
Other news outlets have been doing things like the Post was planning to do for years. In some cases they charge directly for meetings and conferences. In other cases they charge indirectly, as when they invite advertisers to mingle with senior staff over chardonnay and scallops wrapped in bacon. At least one major publication sponsors cruises where readers pay to mingle for several days with big name conservatives, reporters, and editors. The New York Times proudly arranges for discussions with media and entertainment types and runs full-page ads promoting it. Major Washington-based publications hold seminars hosted by one or more of their crack reporters or editors and get corporate sponsorships to make sure they’re profitable. They advertise the fact that their reporters and editors will be speaking because they know that will help draw a paying crowd.
Collender’s right about all that. I participated in lots of Fortune conferences that basically fit the model he describes—although I did generally get the sense that the CEOs who attended were attracted as much or more by the presence of their peers and the promise of a well-run event than access to us Fortune writers and editors. In any event, the very practice of advertiser-supported journalism inevitably brings forth the same conflicts as charging for dinner at the publisher’s house. It just somehow seems a little less … tacky, I guess because we’re used to it and because advertising is more transparent (that is, anybody can see who’s buying the ads and thus paying the bills).
But with ad revenue imploding, I really don’t see how American journalists are going to avoid putting up with a lot more tacky stuff—cultivation of new revenue sources, if you prefer—in coming years. So we’re going to have to come up with a better dividing line between what’s acceptable and what’s not than tackiness.